The disclosure relates to ink delivery systems. In particular, this disclosure relates to fluid delivery with containers and container loading mechanisms useful for printing, and particularly useful for ink-based digital printing using a variable data lithographic printing system.
Digital inline printing and processing of continuous web of media (e.g., paper) has become ubiquitous in recent years for a variety of purposes, including publishing, “print-on-demand,” direct mail marketing, billing etc. In order to keep up with the ink supply demands of continuous web printers, ink reservoirs having large quantities of ink are arranged external to internal ink jet cartridges. The external ink reservoirs are connected to the ink supply containers of the ink jet cartridges to feed ink to the supply containers of the cartridges when ink is printed out of the print heads of the printer. However, known systems suffer from their relatively high complexity and cost.
The complexity and cost further increases when dealing with the commercial banking industry, where the printer produces checks or financial documents with magnetic ink, i.e., by fusing magnetically loaded toner particles thereon. Each financial document has imprinted thereon encoded data in a Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) format. Unfortunately MICR ink can cause skin irritation, at least due to Ethylene Glycol content in the ink. Ethylene Glycol is toxic, and when oxidized turns to glycolic acid and oxalic acid. According to the annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers' National Poison Data System in 2007, there were about 1000 reported cases of ethylene glycol poisoning resulting in 16 deaths. Thus, it is beneficial to prevent human contact with the ink or with fumes coming from the ink in an economical and safe printing system.